Meta Zero One by Martin J Moss Read Free Book Online Page A

departments, which in Elroy’s mind served no useful purpose at all.
     
       What was not visible from the outside was the maze of underground corridors, labs, meeting rooms, monitoring stations and holding cells which practically riddled the surrounding area. There were miles of offices and thousands of people, monitoring, analyzing and tracking super powered individuals in the USA and the rest of the world.
     
      As Head of the Task Force even Elroy had seen only the smallest part of the facility, he knew there were large areas he did not have any access to. There were labs, cells and divisions all operating on or over the limits of morality, and legality.
     
       “Has he said what happened?”
     
       “No,” Francine answered, “and I’m sure that he knows. I'm sure that he saw it happen, but he's not said a single coherent word since he was brought here.”
     
       “Ok, anything show up in his medical?”
     
       “Not yet, we've not had the full results back, you think something will?”
     
       “Definitely,” Elroy took the shirt out of his briefcase and handed it to her, Francine held it for a minute, then gave it back. “Explains a lot doesn't it?” he said.
     
       “Yes in this crazy screwed up world we live in, except why of course. Oh and we checked the daughters records,” Francine consulted her notes, “she was adopted 4th August 2008, parents were poor dirt farmers in Littlewood Nebraska, you were right, she wasn't his.”
     
       “No way on earth Sally was his, couldn't have been.”
     
       “Obviously not.”
     
      “Can he talk, or is he too doped up for that?” Elroy asked.
     
       “Try him,” she replied, “you might just shock him into something, you never can tell. And anyway I think he's faking.”
     
      
     
       “Why did you do it?”
     
       No response, Steven stared straight ahead, looking right through Elroy, as if he wasn't there.
     
       “Why did you do it Steven?”
     
       No direct response, a low inarticulate moan was his only sound.
     
       “Why did you murder your wife and child?”
     
       Steven's eyes flickered momentarily, meeting Elroy’s for a moment, then he looked away.
     
      Elroy carefully placed on the table the lab photos from the crime scene and the scan photo he had picked up in the house the night before.
     
       “Because you did murder them you know, of that I am certain.”
     
       “No.” One word, dragged out under sufferance through clenched teeth. Steven’s voice was hoarse and harsh, his throat raw from screaming. He looked Elroy in the eyes, holding his gaze, “I didn't murder her, I had no idea what would happen.”
     
       “No idea,” Elroy sounded calm, but inside he felt his anger rise suddenly. “No idea,” he snapped, “come on man. You must have seen what was going on, you must have known what was going to happen, the only thing I don't understand is how you kept it from her.”
     
       “I'm good at secrets,” there was a hint of a smile, Elroy wondered just how much effect the drugs were having on Steven, perhaps he really was faking. He knew from bitter experience, you could think that a Meta was pacified; only to have their metabolisms deal with the drugs far faster than a normal person could. He still limped in cold weather from the chunk of flesh Razorfist had taken out of his leg two years ago.
     
      “Not anymore Stevie boy,” Elroy grinned evilly across table, taking from his briefcase the green and yellow shirt and the coffee jar, and placing them on the desk, between them.
     
       “Not anymore,” Elroy continued, “your secrets belong to me now, and unless you start talking and I see a reason to cut you some slack, you will never leave this building alive. You will join the ranks of the other costumed nut bags who thought that their secrets were not for me to know.”
     
      Steven flinched when the creature in the jar scurried around the